אמן >>>>> I AM YOUR GOD <<<<< آمين

...But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.
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יום ראשון

~ I AM THE UNIVERSE:- I AM THE UNIVERSAL MIND

My creative result, my ecstatic creation is manifest:

I AM GOD. I AM MY MIND. I AM MY SELF!

This notion may be better understood through the metaphor of levels of existence.

Try to conceive creation as having five levels. From bottom to top they are atomic, biological, psychological, social and cosmic. If you search for an answer to the ultimate koan, the question "Who am I?", everything you examine will dissolve into the other categories of this metaphor. Start in the middle. You study psychology and soon the psychological brings you to the social through group psychology. On the social level, group psychology extends into sociology, which in turn leads to a study of religion and philosophy. From there you find yourself concerned with the meaning of existence and the relation of men to the universe. You are now on a study of the cosmic.

Going downward in search of an answer to the question "Who am I?" you soon pass from psychology to a study of biology and chemistry. As you seek to know yourself better you study cellular composition and neural networks and the chemistry of emotion, perception, learning and memory. But in seeking to understand mentality you find that soon you have descended to the atomic level and are considering the structure of DNA, genome, the transmission of atomic radiation, and quantum theory. All of which brings you down to the top level! For subatomic physics leads you into the study of matter and anti-matter on a cosmic scale. Cosmology is that branch of metaphysics which treats of the character of the universe as an orderly system. The underlying unity of all things and all knowledge brings you full circle and demonstrates the validity of the ancient occult saying: "As above, so below".

A local vortex in a sea of energy, man is a visible emblem of the steady-state theory of creation. It is not so much a case of "I think" as "I am being thought" or "I am constantly created". Consciousness as the basis of all bodily activity and mental functioning becomes a sort of internal radiation which is not internal at all, but rather is a focused or concentrated area of external cosmic radiation. Ahaa, the aura of mystics and stylized halo of saints is then explained! It is a self-induced electromagnetic energy stepped up and brought into the visible-light area of the spectrum by their "spiritual purity" -- that is, by their lack of interfering vibrations from confused thought processes.

From quarks to quasars, from pulse to pulsars---and all because of our question: Who am I? The final analysis turns out to be an original synthesis, and consciousness becomes the interconnectedness of all creation in a great chain of being. Content and process, science and religion converge in the study of self-identity, revealing the true meaning of the mind manifestation, the showing forth of the true dimensions of the self-spirit.

So: who am I? I am the Universe -- I am the Universal Mind

Repeat with Me:who am I? I am the Universe -- I am the Universal Mind

I AM GOD - I AM YOUR GOD

And here My Prophetess speaks--------Life is a void, full of life.

Choose your life. Choose your body. Choose your destiny. Choices. Decisions. Paths. Bodies. Personalities. I like this one. She is perfect. I try her on! She fits. She is my size. She is my colour. She is my race. She is mine. I take her. She takes me. She is me.

She is Amazon women. She has the body of a Goddess. She has iron will. She has golden heart. She has courage of a warrior, the mind of a genius, the soul of a prophet. She owns the wisdom gained through the past of all her ancestors, and the hope promised for the future of all her descendants. She is the strength of iron, the yield of wind, the flow of water, the brightness of light. She is light. She is the space between the stars. She is the ocean. She is the sky. She is the desert. She is the jungle. She is a cat. A tiger, a leopard, a jaguar, a cougar. She is no mouse and she is no rabbit.

She is smart. She is confident. She is driven. She is assertive. She does not submit. She does not beg. She does not trick. She does not treat. She is no threat to anyone and no one is a threat to her. She does not manipulate. She knows what she wants and she will get it. Get out of her way or her way will get you.

She never asks why. She does not take NO for an answer. She does not need Yes for approval.. She does not question if it is proper to say NO. She does not question if it is proper to say YES. She does not answer No because she should. She does not say YES to be nice. She needs no permission from anybody to do, think, feel or have anything. She needs no validation. She needs no status. She needs no reasons. She needs no purpose. She does not care what others think: She knows that no two people think alike. She knows every person does and needs to think for him or herself. She thinks for herself and for herself only. She knows HER self. She likes Her self. She is Her self at all times.

She is no sugar, all spice. She is nobody’s honey. She is not sweet. She is not bitter. She is delicious. She sings, she dances, she stings. She is hot, like red iron. She is warm like beach sand. She is pure like fresh snow. She is hard like cold ice. She is strong like the wind. She goes with the flow. She is the flow.

She does not subscribe to rules. Of society. Of culture. Of men. Of women. Of money. Of religion. She knows only one rule: the Rule of the Universe, only one law, The Law of Nature. She does not have a good nature. She has no bad nature. She is nature. She is Mother Earth’s daughter. She is Goddess of birth.

She is logical, she is sensible, she does not lie and does not believe lies. She knows nothing needs a reason and everything has a reason on its own. She knows there is no right and no wrong. Only this or that. Left or Right. Up or Down. This moment or never. This life or the next. She knows the chances are endless. The possibilities are infinite. There is no wrong life. There is no wasted time. Time is a construct. Time passes without being measured, managed, can not be stopped, wasted or saved, or reset. Time all there is. Infinitely. Forever, and ever. It’s time for the time of her life. It is time for the life of her time. It is time for this lifetime.

Her mission is not to be nice, but to be true. Her purpose is not to find love. Love is with her and she is love herself. She does not want to be to be successful at anything but life. Success is a man made label. Happiness belongs to her.

Success is to go all the way to the end. Happiness is to go beyond. Divinity is to come back and do it again. She’ll do it differently. She will repeats until necessary. She will return, until she no longer wants to return, no longer need to return. She will stay until she had enough, learned enough, thought enough, loved enough lived enough. She does not contemplate her death. She is planning her living.

She knows what is the game that is played in the dark. She knows who is winning and who is loosing and she knows, there are no losers and no winners. Only players, observers and judges. She the observer, she is the player and she is the judge. She judges not. She does not need to. She knows she can change the game any time. She knows she can change the players. She makes up her own rules. She dreams her own dream. She has no worries. She knows who she is, and she knows she is her own person.

She does not need attention. Every body pays attention to her. Everybody notices her. She notices nothing but that is worth noticing. She lives on the inside. She knows a body is nothing but a cocoon. Container of the soul. She lives not in her body, but in her own universe. She needs no power. She is power. She does not want to know answers to secrets, but nothing is a secret to her. She knows that there are no questions. Only answers. A question is a backside answer. She knows that the answer comes before the question. The answer was always there. It does not need to be discovered. It does not need to be questioned. It does not need to be proved. The truth was always the truth and will always be the truth. That’s the truth.

The truth is God. She. Me. You. He. It. Them. Us. Those. All. The Universe. The Force. The Light. The Void. Life and Death, and Everything in Between. The Way out of Plato’s Cave.

They, IT, manifested directly in front of me without leaving me. Still enveloping me, comforting me, but yet, directly in front of me, IT split into two different spheres, two different colors, I guess, to make me understand and see, that, while it was ONE, WHOLE and COMPLETE, it was still made of two distinct entities: HIM and HER. Ying and Yang…Eros and Logos…I understood, and nod my head in agreement. Not, that they could have not just read my mind. They knew, I understood.

Then, I was not at the beach any more, I was in the Void of Life, out in the Universe, floating between worlds and realities. IT was big then, as big as a planet, and IT kept growing, expanding, until it was as big as the Universe itself. Suddenly, IT broke, exploded into a million, no, billion, no, infinite balls, particles of light, still whole, still complete, yet distinct and independent of each other. Then, I saw in Technicolor and heard in surround sound ALL the realities, all the Universes, all the Planets, the Stars and Suns, and Milky Ways, all around me, thousands, millions of them…and I saw humans, I saw entities that looked like humans, but were not humans at all, I saw aliens of all races and species…I saw EVERYTHING all at once, whole, complex, complete, yet distinct and independent of each other.

The particles of IT filled each and every “living soul”, they were everywhere, and they were in everything, in every body. Suddenly, I was an eagle, fat and with ruffled feathers, and I was flying over pyramids, over towns and cities, over continents of Earth, and I had eagle eyes, I saw everybody from up there, I saw couples and lonely people, babies and old men, children and adults, playing, working, fighting, fleeing, making love, and making a living…I saw humans of all races, happy and sad, being born, living and dying. IT, the ball of light was in each of them. THEY were in each of them.

Then, I saw myself, Gina, the corporeal woman, sleeping in my bed, sleeping on Sasa’s side, where he used to sleep when he came over…and I saw IT, the light in her…a little ball of light of two different, distinct colors, that were inseparable, complete, and whole. Then, the Light, the Ball expanded, and it grew, until it filled her whole body, filled every cell in her, her body, her heart, her mind… in me. I understood, IT was her Soul, my Soul. The Soul of The Universe. God.

I was reminded, and understood ALL my previous insights then, for a split second, that lasted a lifetime, I understood again. He was me. I was Her. We were One. Sasa was in me, I was in Sasa, and we were in every one else. The One was me, because she was inside me. SASA was Sasa, because He was inside of him too. He was in every living soul too, of men I knew, of men I never met, and men I would never meet in this life time. We were ONE, connected, complete, complex and whole, yet, distinct and individual.

I remembered. And, I understood the Mirror too. The mirror in the Void of Life, that showed me The One…The Amazon woman, the confident, independent, beautiful, perfect woman. I understood, that they did not lie to me, when they “made me believe”, that she was Me. That I was The One.. She was inside me, as she was in all other women, and men all other souls of the Universe. I did not fail her, I did not fail Sasa, I did not fail myself at all. I did not fail Love. Yet, I was still not sure…I understood all of this, but I could not FEEL it. I knew all of this, but I could not BELIEVE it. My soul might have known the truth, but me, Gina, the corporeal woman was still hurting, still afraid, still not at peace. They knew that too, they understood me.

Suddenly, I was in the Mansion, in front of the Mirror again. I saw the Gypsy Woman in the mirror, and I understood, that she was me, and I was her. She smiled at me, the old woman, with dark skin, and whiskers, she smiled the most beautiful, loving, warm smile I have ever seen. Slowly, Gypsy Women disappeared and she has transformed into a new image…an image of…me. Gina. A 44 year old, corporeal female, slightly chubby, a round, somewhat soft belly, not worthy of a bodybuilder dudess, or a Greek Goddess, but not a Buddha belly either. Rather small, but cute breasts, with perky nipples. Scars of near deaths, giving births, falling from trees, and stumbling on stairs. Quite nice biceps and quads. Some wrinkles. Nice hair, and still lots of it, although some grey. Kind, compassionate, intelligent, independent, strong, sassy, emotional, funny, stubborn, wise, foolish, vulnerable, sexy, beautiful, sensual, chatty, brainy, logical, analytical, compulsive obsessive ME. I looked into Her dark, gypsy, soulful eyes, and saw a wink, and a sparkle. A sparkle of light, that could not be put out by lifetimes of monsters, witches, demons, wizards, lying and cheating men, troubles, wars, fights, sickness, horror and pain. I saw the light, and I have recognized IT. I smiled at Her, at myself. I swear, I had the most beautiful, warmest, and most loving smile in the entire Universe.

Once upon a time, there was a baby boy born to a woman in a far away place. He seemed to be just like all the other babies born in that town, in fact, he looked just like any other baby in any other place. But, he was different. The place he was born in, and grew up was the most beautiful place in the universe. There was abundance of everything, and there were riches everywhere. It was the best place to live.

Except…nobody around him noticed any of this. In fact, nobody noticed that he was even born. The people of this place could not see, hear, or sense his presence. Everybody in this town was deaf, blind, and lacked any senses. They could not speak, they could not communicate. In fact, they were not even aware of each other. Every person in this place thought that he was alone. Every person in this place thought that he was in a void. In fact, no person in this place thought anything at all. They were like plants, alive, breathing, multiplying, vegetating, dying, and never aware of their own existence. They had no souls, and they had no conscience.

By a wonderful miracle, or a terrible mistake, the baby boy that was born that day, not only had his senses, but he had heightened senses, extraordinary talents, and an ability to perceive things and beings that were far away, in other places, and even other realities.. Not only he had a soul, but he had soul that travelled all those other places before, and lived in all those realities before he was born into this town. His soul remembered other times, and other places, and he was able to recall his experiences often in his daydreams and dreams.

He used both his conscious knowledge, and the knowledge that was available to him only through his dreams to raise himself to be a man, as there was no one to raise him. He learned to live in this strange place among the vegetation, and he lacked nothing at all. Except, he was terribly lonely. He could not communicate with anyone. He could not share his knowledge with anybody. He could not even talk to anyone, as no one heard, saw him, or was even aware of his existence.

He looked around one day, and said to himself: I have to help these beings. I have to teach them everything I know. There must be somebody here, who is like me, or who is at least capable of being like me. He searched and searched, looked at every face, looking for a sign of intelligence, a sign of consciousness, a sign of soul. He found some beings that showed promise. The female ones were especially promising.. Perhaps because they were more connected by instincts to the universe, to nature than the males, through their reproduction cycles, through giving birth, and nursing their young; they were more receptive than the males. He then, decided to focus on the female species, and searched for those that seemed to be more evolved than the others. He spent weeks, months, sometimes years trying to connect to them. To teach them, to train them, and to open them up, so the souls could enter them from the other realities. Most of the time, he was utterly unsuccessful. But, some times, he has succeeded, more or less. On several occasion, he thought he finally got it. Some of the beings became aware, and even learned to communicate, to listen, to talk.

However, once the begins received a consciousness, and started to perceive not only the wonderful place around them, but also, the possibility of other places, the hope of more wonderful things beyond this place, they all left, in order to live in a place where everybody was more like them. He, the teacher was once again, alone and could not do anything but start all over.

Over the years, he became more and more skilful of his craft. He succeeded more and more often, and the beings he helped became more and more like him. However, they, like all the others, kept leaving, and our hero, the reluctant prophet came to accept this. He reasoned that perhaps his mission is to help as many beings as possible to be able to leave this place. He became more and more focused on helping and teaching, and letting them all go. Over the years, he forgot his original intention of connecting with the beings, helping them to connect not only to him, and to the entities of other realities, but to each other. He became so immersed in his work, that he forgot why he was there to begin with.

He did not realise, that while his skills and talents that were useful in helping the beings became more and more refined, he himself was slowly loosing other skills, talents and senses, that –since they were not useful in helping the beings- did no longer find useful. Eventually, his senses became so narrow, that he only saw the ones that needed help. He never realised, that there were more and more of beings like him staying and living in this place. Some were those he helped, some were helped by the ones trained by him. Eventually, there were more and more beings like him, and less and less who were different. But, by this time, he only saw the ones that still needed help. Once they became like him, they became invisible to him. So, unable to see them, hear them, or communicate with them, he assumed that they left too.

In his dreams, he still communicated with the other realities, with the other places, and he yearned to be among them, with them. But, he no longer had any daydreams.

One day, a visitor came from far away, a messenger from one of the other places. She was sent by the beings to help the man to reconnect to his original intention and to recover his lost senses. She knew, that the man will not see her, if she shows her true self, as he is only able to perceive imperfection. So, she disguised herself in an imperfect body and disguised her true self beyond layers and layers of imperfection.

She set out to find him, but the search took much longer than she anticipated. She got lost. She got so used to her imperfection, that she forgot who she really was. Finally, she herself became imperfect, as now she did not remember her mission, nor who she really was.

When she finally met him, he looked at her, her imperfection, and decided to make her his next project. He worked hard, and he succeeded to crack an opening in her cocoon, through which forces that neither of them knew or were aware any more rushed in. The forces, the entities and the messages affected her more than the other beings, because she too, like the man, was not from this place. She too, deep inside, had memories of the other realities. She got scared. She got confused. She wanted to run away, and she did.

She run, and run, until she found herself in absolutely nowhere, in between the places of perfection and imperfection, in the void of life. There, she found a mirror. She looked at her reflection, and she saw herself. She remembered everything that there was to know. She remembered why she came to this place, and why she now must return. She needed to take the mirror to the man. To hold it in front of him, so he can see himself once again.

She was scared to go back…now she knew, that it is a place where one can be easily lost, where one can easily loose herself. But, she knew, she needed to go back. It was what friends are for. Nothing less, nothing more.

The Mission:

This is your mission. You may accept to accomplish this in this lifetime, or the next. But, you will fulfill your mission, for that is why you are here, that’s why you keep coming back.

He will find you. He is your other half, your Mentor, your Teacher, your Apprentice and Your Prophet. Your greatest desire and biggest fear. Your blessing and your curse, your Challenger and your Subject. Your Ally and your Nemesis. You must find the King, for you are the Queen. For without him you can know, but you can not understand. You can forget, but you can not forgive. You can foresee, but you can not have foresight. You can adore, but you can not love. You can teach but you can not learn. You can speak but you won’t be heard. You can sing, but you can not listen. You can force but you can not conquer. You will know her when you meet Her, you’ve seen Her in the Mirror and in your Dreams. You have heard hear through the noise of your thoughts, and felt her through your pain and pleasure. You must find her, for see holds the key, she guards the Entrance, she is the keeper of the biggest mystery, she is the Judge, the Juror, the Prosecutor and the Defense. .

You have Technicolor dreams, and Supersonic visions. You have senses beyond the realm of this world. You have an understanding of all things Living and Dying, of all things Corporeal and Ethereal, of all things Mundane and Magnificent. You have knowledge of all that is Eternal, Perfect and Complete. Now, you must remember the future, the present and the past. You must unite the Ideals, the Forms, the Saints and Aliens, Karma and Zen, Heaven and Earth, Venus and Mars, Darkness and Light, Day and Night, Messengers and Prophets, the Ying and the Yen. You must decipher, learn and pass on the Truth.

You know all of this, but you must remember. You taught all of this to all of Them, you were Them, you are Us. Each form of you, each life you lived, each death you died is a part of the Truth. You must remember, know and understand ALL. You must travel to the past and to the future, to all places of the Universe, earthly and divine. You must collect the clues, and complete the Puzzle. You must find and unite of who you were, who you are, and who you are going to be. This lifetime is your last as a Teacher, Master, Invader, Emperor, Inventor, and Discoverer, Men, Woman, Wife, Mother, Father, Child, Mistress, Seductress, Sherezade, Human.

The next will be that of a True Prophet, a Messiah who is all that you were, and all that you’ve become. Next time, there will be no corporal body, no human desires, no human limitations, no distractions and no rewards. There will be only YOU. There will be only the Truth. There will be only the Universe. For you are Agent of the Universe, an Ambassador of the Truth, a Master of Love, an Emperor of Life.

You’ve chosen this mission, you were selected to choose. All of your existences were in preparation of the next, when you will not exist at all, yet you will be all that there is.

Split Second

The why, when and whyThe truth, and nothing but the truth:The choices made and pipers paid:All become clear, all make perfect sense.In that split second between death and life When life flashes in front of the dying eyes.

I had a near life experience.It lasted months that felt likeThe best moments of my lives and the best times since I died. I sawDreams and fantasiesI saw Memories of the Future.I saw a house with a white picket fenceI saw steamy nights and sunny day trips, I sawSunsets and sunrises,Walks on the beachSwims with the Dolphins, fights with the piranhas,I sawUnderwater dreamlands and castles in the Sky.

I saw pyramids, mountains and riversI saw him, I saw me, I saw Us.For a split second, I thought, I saw the end of my life,andThe beginning of ours.I sawHim dying too, I was thereI held his hand, As he slipped away Into the voidOf lifeInto the between of life and deathAnd I told him:Sleep well, darling,You had lead a good life,You had fought a good fightYou loved wellAnd I loved youAlwaysAsI Always loved youbeforeIn between my lives and deaths.Sleep well, I said, and do rememberWhen you wake up I will be thereTo open your eyes.

For a split second, time has stoppedAnd I saw perfect past,Simple presentAnd imperfect futureAnd for a split second, I thought, I saw God: I saw Life.

I do not believeIn miracles.I do not believeIn talking Mirrors, in burning bushesI do not believe in Knights of Shining ArmorsI do not believe in Angels, Saviors and Prophets.I do not even believe in God.

Yet, I thought, I felt, I believed, thatI was loved for a split second.In thatSplit betweenNow and ThenLife and DeathHere and ThereAnd I I loved himFor a split second, When we stood In the void of lifeIn front of a mirror that talkedIn front of a bush that burnedI saw him, and I thought,For a split second, that He was my KnightOf shining armor,He’ll kissMe Awake,He’ll open my eyes…

Then, it was over.The split second ended in a split second.As I felt my heart break open,Strangely, I heard shatters ofA mirrorBreaking into a thousand pieces.I watched the bush in front of my windowBut it did not burst into flames.

Life is back to normalAs had been before.God’s will.Fate.It’s what I knew all along:

Life goes on, like it always has before.As it should be,As I expected.As it was writtenAs it would be done.Maktub. Insaallah, Amen.For a split second, I thought, It was the BeginningI guess, it wasThe End.

יום שבת

~ Everything Is Meaningless

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?

Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.

The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.

All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.

There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.

Wisdom Is Meaningless

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.

I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge." Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

I thought in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." But that also proved to be meaningless. "Laughter," I said, "is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?" I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well—the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.

Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

Wisdom and Folly Are Meaningless

Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king's successor do than what has already been done? I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.

The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.

Then I thought in my heart, "The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?" I said in my heart, "This too is meaningless."

For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!

Toil Is Meaningless

So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.

A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind

A Time for Everything

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.

And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment—wickedness was there, in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

I thought in my heart, "God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed."

I also thought, "As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"

So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will happen after him?

Oppression, Toil, Friendlessness

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun: I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter.

And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive.

But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.

And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

The fool folds his hands and ruins himself.

Better one handful with tranquillity than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.

Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:

There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. "For whom am I toiling," he asked, "and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?" This too is meaningless— a miserable business!

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:

If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Advancement Is Meaningless

Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to take warning. The youth may have come from prison to the kingship, or he may have been born in poverty within his kingdom. I saw that all who lived and walked under the sun followed the youth, the king's successor. There was no end to all the people who were before them. But those who came later were not pleased with the successor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Stand in Awe of God

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.

As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words.

When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, "My vow was a mistake." Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.

Riches Are Meaningless

If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still. The increase from the land is taken by all; the king himself profits from the fields.

Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.

As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them?

The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep.

I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner,

or wealth lost through some misfortune, so that when he has a son there is nothing left for him.

Naked a man comes from his mother's womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand.

This too is a grievous evil: As a man comes, so he departs, and what does he gain, since he toils for the wind?

All his days he eats in darkness, with great frustration, affliction and anger.

Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him—for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.

I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men: God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.

A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man- even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity. Do not all go to the same place?

All man's efforts are for his mouth, yet his appetite is never satisfied.

What advantage has a wise man over a fool? What does a poor man gain by knowing how to conduct himself before others?

Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Whatever exists has already been named, and what man is has been known; no man can contend with one who is stronger than he.

The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?

For who knows what is good for a man in life, during the few and meaningless days he passes through like a shadow? Who can tell him what will happen under the sun after he is gone?

Wisdom

A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

It is better to heed a wise man's rebuke than to listen to the song of fools.

Like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of fools. This too is meaningless.

Extortion turns a wise man into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.

Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions.

Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing and benefits those who see the sun.

Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: that wisdom preserves the life of its possessor.

Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what he has made crooked?

When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.

In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.

Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise— why destroy yourself?

Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool— why die before your time?

It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.

Wisdom makes one wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city.

There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.

Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you-

for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.

All this I tested by wisdom and I said, "I am determined to be wise"— but this was beyond me.

Whatever wisdom may be, it is far off and most profound— who can discover it?

So I turned my mind to understand, to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly.

I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.

"Look," says the Teacher, "this is what I have discovered: "Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things-

while I was still searching but not finding— I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.

This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes."

Who is like the wise man? Who knows the explanation of things? Wisdom brightens a man's face and changes its hard appearance.

Obey the King

Obey the king's command, I say, because you took an oath before God. Do not be in a hurry to leave the king's presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. Since a king's word is supreme, who can say to him, "What are you doing?"

Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure.

For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a man's misery weighs heavily upon him.

Since no man knows the future, who can tell him what is to come?

No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death. As no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.

All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. Then too, I saw the wicked buried—those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless.

When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong. Although a wicked man commits a hundred crimes and still lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God-fearing men, who are reverent before God. Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.

There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man's labor on earth—his eyes not seeing sleep day or night- then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.

A Common Destiny for All

So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them.

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. Anyone who is among the living has hope —even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.

Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

Wisdom Better Than Folly

I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me: There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siegeworks against it. Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man. So I said, "Wisdom is better than strength." But the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded.

The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.

As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.

Even as he walks along the road, the fool lacks sense and shows everyone how stupid he is.

If a ruler's anger rises against you, do not leave your post; calmness can lay great errors to rest.

There is an evil I have seen under the sun, the sort of error that arises from a ruler:

Fools are put in many high positions, while the rich occupy the low ones.

I have seen slaves on horseback, while princes go on foot like slaves.

Whoever digs a pit may fall into it; whoever breaks through a wall may be bitten by a snake.

Whoever quarries stones may be injured by them; whoever splits logs may be endangered by them.

If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed but skill will bring success.

If a snake bites before it is charmed, there is no profit for the charmer.

Words from a wise man's mouth are gracious, but a fool is consumed by his own lips.

At the beginning his words are folly; at the end they are wicked madness-

and the fool multiplies words. No one knows what is coming— who can tell him what will happen after him?

A fool's work wearies him; he does not know the way to town.

Woe to you, O land whose king was a servant and whose princes feast in the morning.

Blessed are you, O land whose king is of noble birth and whose princes eat at a proper time— for strength and not for drunkenness.

If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks.

A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything.

Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your bedroom, because a bird of the air may carry your words, and a bird on the wing may report what you say.

Bread Upon the Waters

Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again. Give portions to seven, yes to eight, for you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.

If clouds are full of water, they pour rain upon the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie.

Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.

Remember Your Creator While Young

Light is sweet, and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.

However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all. But let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything to come is meaningless.

Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.

So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless.

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, "I find no pleasure in them"-

before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain;

when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim;

when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when men rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint;

when men are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags himself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets.

Remember him —before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well,

and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Not only was HaKohelet wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. HaKohelet searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true.

The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one Shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.

Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

~ PULL YOUR FINGER OUT

The cruelty of man is unfathomable.Yes, YOU, man, you!Your stupidity is incredibleYour gullibility is appallingYour silliness is cretinousYour voracity is unsatiableYour sadism is inconceivableYour masochism is atrociousYour destructive impulses interminable

Damn you!Damn you to hell!I shall not forgive you, you brainless cockroach

I AM SICK OF YOU

You vomit of the EarthYou slimeYou unspeakable dirt

Why have I generated the principle of Creation to end up with you?

Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Am I angry!!!

You are My child, and yet I hate youYou don't seem to be able to behaveAnything good in you gets easily wastedEvil replaces it quicklyAnd you wreck havoc among yourselvesYou suicidal maniacYou have been destroying yourself ever since evolution arrived to your completion

My Wrath is bulding upWhat Am I going to do with youYou useless speck of excreta?

I cannot liberate you from self-inflicted cages.You have to liberate yourself, and you are unable to do that. What I have to say will not do it.You are not listening.Never ever listening.But maybe I can convince you not to waste a lot of time and energy, looking for a state which does not exist except in your imagination.

Get this straight, this is your state I am describing, your natural state.This is your natural state, but what prevents what is there from expressing itself in its own way is your reaching out for something, trying to be something other than what you are.

You can never understand this; you can only experience this in terms of your past experience. This is outside the realm of experience. The natural state is acausal: it just happens. No communication is possible, and none necessary. The only thing that is real to you is the way you are functioning; it is an act of futility to relate my description to the way you are functioning. When you stop all this comparison, what is there is your natural state. Then you will not listen to anybody.

Why do you always discover light when it's starting to fade, to die out?

You're always lateYou're always one step behind...

But before you scream your pain, listen to Me once more:

There is no teaching of mine, and never shall be one."Teaching" is not the word for it. I Am not a Teacher.I AM GOD.

A teaching implies a method or a system, a technique or a new way of thinking to be applied in order to bring about a transformation in your way of life.

What I Am saying is outside the field of teachability; it is simply a description of the way I Am.Your God.God.The Ineffable.

The natural state for man is not the state of a self-realized God-realized man, it is not a thing to be achieved or attained, it is not a thing to be willed into existence; it is there -- it is the living state. This state is just the functional activity of life. By 'life' I do not mean something abstract; it is the life of the senses, functioning naturally without the interference of thought. Thought is an interloper, which thrusts itself into the affairs of the senses. It has a profit motive: thought directs the activity of the senses to get something out of them, and uses them to give continuity to itself.

Your natural state has no relationship whatsoever with the religious states of bliss, beatitude and ecstasy; they lie within the field of experience. Those who have led man on his search for religiousness throughout the centuries have perhaps experienced those religious states. So can you. They are thought-induced states of being, and as they come, so do they go. Krishna Consciousness, Buddha Consciousness, Christ Consciousness, or what have you, are all trips in the wrong direction: they are all within the field of time. The timeless can never be experienced, can never be grasped, contained, much less given expression to, by any man. That beaten track will lead you nowhere. There is no oasis situated yonder; you are stuck with the mirage.

This state is a physical condition of your being. It is not some kind of psychological mutation. It is not a state of mind into which you can fall one day, and out of it the next day. You can't imagine the extent to which, as you are now, thought pervades and interferes with the functioning of every cell in your body. Coming into your natural state will blast every cell, every gland, every nerve. It is a chemical change. An alchemy of some sort takes place. But this state has nothing to do with the experiences of chemical drugs such as LSD. Those are experiences; this is not.

Does such a thing as enlightenment exist? What does exist is a purely physical process; there is nothing mystical or spiritual about it. If you close the eyes, some light penetrates through the eyelids. If you cover the eyelids, there is still light inside. There seems to be some kind of a hole in the forehead, which doesn't show, but through which something penetrates. In India that light is golden; in Europe it is blue. There is also some kind of light penetration through the back of the neck. It's as if there is a hole running through between those spots in front and back of the skull. There is nothing inside but this light. If you cover those points, there is complete, total darkness. This light doesn't do anything or help the body to function in any way; it's just there.

My Light.THE EVERPRESENT LIGHT.

This state is a state of not knowing; you really don't know what you are looking at. yOU may look at the clock on the wall for half an hour -- still YOU do not read the time. You don't know it is a clock. All there is inside is wonderment: "What is this that I am looking at?" Not that the question actually phrases itself like that in words: the whole of my being is like a single, big question mark. It is a state of wonder, of wondering, because you just do not know what you are looking at. The knowledge about it -- all that you have learned -- is held in the background unless there is a demand. It is in the 'declutched state'. If someone asks the time, you will say "It's a quarter past three" or whatever -- it comes quickly like an arrow -- then you are back in the state of not knowing, of wonder.

You can never understand the tremendous peace that is always there within you, that is your natural state. Your trying to create a peaceful state of mind is in fact creating disturbance within you. You can only talk of peace, create a state of mind and say to yourself that you are very peaceful -- but that is not peace; that is violence. So there is no use in practicing peace, there is no reason to practice silence. Real silence is explosive; it is not the dead state of mind that spiritual seekers think. "Oh, I am at peace with myself! There is silence, a tremendous silence! I experience silence!" -- that doesn't mean anything at all. This is volcanic in its nature: it's bubbling all the time -- the energy, the life -- that is its quality. Life is aware of itself -- it is conscious of itself.because it is My Light.

THE LIGHT

When I talk of 'feeling', of human feeling, I do not mean the same thing that you do. Actually, feeling is a physical response, a thud in the thymus. The thymus, one of the endocrine glands, is located under the breast bone. The doctors tell you that it is active through childhood until puberty and then becomes dormant. When you come into your natural state, this gland is re-activated. Sensations are felt there; you don't translate them as 'good' or 'bad'; they are just a thud. If there is a movement outside of you -- a clock pendulum swinging, or a bird flying across your field of vision -- that movement is also felt in the thymus. The whole of your being is that movement or vibrates with that sound; there is no separation. This does not mean that you identify yourself with that bird or whatever -- "I am that flying bird." There is no 'you' there, nor is there any object. What causes that sensation, you don't know. You do not even know that it is a sensation.

'Affection' means that you are affected by everything, not that some emotion flows from you towards something. The natural state is a state of great sensitivity -- but this is a physical sensitivity of the senses, not some kind of emotional compassion or tenderness for others. There is compassion only in the sense that there are no 'others' for you, and so there is no separation.

Is there in you an entity which you call the 'I' or the 'mind' or the 'self'? Is there a co- ordinator who is co-ordinating what you are looking at with what you are listening to, what you are smelling with what you are tasting, and so on? Or is there anything which links together the various sensations originating from a single sense -- the flow of impulses from the eyes, for example? Actually, there is always a gap between any two sensations. The co-ordinator bridges that gap: he establishes himself as an illusion of continuity.

In the natural state there is no entity who is co-ordinating the messages from the different senses. Each sense is functioning independently in its own way. When there is a demand from outside which makes it necessary to co-ordinate one or two or all of the senses and come up with a response, still there is no co-ordinator, but there is a temporary state of co- ordination. There is no continuity; when the demand has been met, again there is only the unco-ordinated, disconnected, disjointed functioning of the senses. This is always the case. Once the continuity is blown apart -- not that it was ever there; but the illusory continuity -- it's finished once and for all.

Can this make any sense to you? It cannot.

All that you know lies within the framework of your experience, which is of thought. This state is not an experience. I am only trying to give you a 'feel' of it, which is, unfortunately, misleading.

When there is no co-ordinator, there is no linking of sensations, there is no translating of sensations; they stay pure and simple sensations. You do not even know that they are sensations. Someone may look at you as you are talking. The eyes will focus on your mouth because that is what is moving, and the ears will receive the sound vibrations. There is nothing inside which links up the two and says that it is you talking. Someone may be looking at a spring bubbling out of the earth and hear the water, but there is nothing to say that the noise being heard is the sound of water, or that that sound is in any way connected with what he is seeing. You may be looking at your foot, but nothing says that this is your own foot. When you are walking, you see your feet moving -- it is such a funny thing: "What is that which is moving?"

What functions is a primordial consciousness, untouched by thought.

The eyes are like a very sensitive camera. The physiologists say that light reflected off objects strikes the retina of the eye and the sensation goes through the optic nerve to the brain. The faculty of sight, of seeing, is simply a physical phenomenon. It makes no difference to the eyes whether they are focused on a snow-capped mountain or on a garbage can: they produce sensations in exactly the same way. the eyes look on everyone and everything without discrimination.

You have a feeling that there is a 'cameraman' who is directing the eyes. But left to themselves -- when there is no 'cameraman' -- the eyes do not linger, but are moving all the time. They are drawn by the things outside. Movement attracts them, or brightness or a color which stands out from whatever is around it. There is no 'I' looking; mountains, flowers, trees, cows, all look at me. The consciousness is like a mirror, reflecting whatever is there outside. The depth, the distance, the color, everything is there, but there is nobody who is translating these things. Unless there is a demand for knowledge about what I am looking at, there is no separation, no distance from what is there. It may not actually be possible to count the hairs on the head of someone sitting across the room, but there is a kind of clarity which seems as if I could.

The eyes do not blink, except when there is sudden danger -- this is something very natural because the things outside are demanding attention all the time. Then, when the eyes are tired, a built-in mechanism in the body cuts them out -- they may be open, but they are blurred. But if the eyes stay open all the time, if the reflex action of blinking is not operating, they become dry and you will go blind; so there are some glands beyond the outer corners of the eyes, which are not activated in your case, which act as a watering mechanism. Tears flow all the time from the outer corners. Ignorant people have described them as 'tears of joy' or 'tears of bliss'. There is nothing divine about them. By practicing not blinking, one will not arrive in this state; one will only strain the eyes. And there are neurotics in mental hospitals whose eyes do not blink for one reason or another -- for them it is a pathological condition. But once you are in your natural state, by some luck or some strange chance, all this happens in its own way.

Does beauty lie in the eye of the beholder? Does it lie in the object? Where does it lie? Beauty is thought-induced. You do not stop and write poems about the mountain in front of you. What happens is that you are walking and suddenly see something different because the light has changed. You have nothing to do with it. It is not that something new is seen, or that there is a total attention; there has been a sudden change in the light itself. There is no recognition of that as beauty. Clarity is there, which probably wasn't there before the light changed. Then this consciousness suddenly expands to the size of the object in front of the body, and the lungs take a deep breath. You call this is the pranayama -- breath control. Not what you are doing, sitting in a corner and inhaling through one nostril and exhaling through the other; this pranayama is going on all the time. So, there is consciousness of a sudden change in the breathing, and then it moves on to something else, the mooing of a cow or the howling of a jackal. It is always moving; it does not linger on something which thought has decided is beautiful. There is no one directing.

Do you listen to anybody? You do not; you listen only to yourself.

When you leave the sense of hearing alone, all that is there is the vibration of the sound -- the words repeat themselves inside of you, as in an echo chamber. This sense is functioning in just the same way with you, except that you think the words you are hearing come from outside of you. Get this straight: You can never hear one word from anyone else, no matter how intimately you think you are in relationship with that person; you hear only your own translations, always. They are all your words you are hearing. All that the other person's words can possibly be to you is a noise, a vibration picked up by the ear-drum and transferred to the nerves which run to the brain. You are translating those vibrations all the time, trying to understand, because you want to get something out of what you are hearing. That is all right for a relationship with someone on the level of "Here is some money; give me a half kilo of carrots" -- but that is the limit of your relationship, of your communication, with anybody.

When there is no translation, all languages sound the same whether or not your particular knowledge structure 'speaks' a particular language. The only differences are in the spacing of the syllables and in the tune. Languages are melodic in different ways.

It is acquired taste that tells you that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is more beautiful than a chorus of cats screaming; both produce equally valid sensations. Of course some sounds can be damaging to the body, and noise levels above a certain number of decibels are hard on the nervous system and can cause deafness -- that is not what I am talking about. But the appreciation of music, poetry and language is all culturally determined and is the product of thought.

Your movement of thought interferes with the process of touch, just as it does with the other senses. Anything you touch is always translated as 'hard', 'soft', 'warm', 'cold', 'wet', 'dry', and so on.

You do not realize it, but it is your thinking that creates your own body. Without this thought process there is no body consciousness -- which is to say there is no body at all. Your body exists for other people; it does not exist for you; there are only isolated points of contact, impulses of touch which are not tied together by thought. So the body is not different from the objects around it; it is a set of sensations like any others. Your body does not belong to you.

The natural state is a living thing. It cannot be captured . It's like a flower. It just blooms. It's there. As long as it is there, it has a fragrance which is different and distinct from that of every other flower. You may not recognize it. You may or may not write odes or sonnets about it. A wandering cow might eat it, or it may be chopped down by a haycutter, or it fades and is finished -- that's the end of it. It's of no importance. You can't preserve its perfume; whatever you preserve of this is only a synthetic, a chemical perfume, not the living thing. Preserving the expressions, teachings or words of such a man has no meaning. This state has only contemporary value, contemporary expression.

The personality does not change when you come into this state. You are, after all, a computer machine, which reacts as it has been programmed. It is in fact your present effort to change yourself that is taking you away from yourself and keeping you from functioning in the natural way. The personality will remain the same. Don't expect such a man to become free from anger or idiosyncrasies. Don't expect some kind of spiritual humility. Such a man may be the most arrogant person you have ever met, because he is touching life at a unique place where no man has touched before.

It is for this reason that each person who comes into this state expresses it in a unique way, in terms relevant to his time. It is also for this reason that if two or more people are living in this state at the same time, they will never get together. They won't dance in the streets hand in hand: "We are all self-realized men! We belong!"

The natural needs of a human being are basic: food, clothing and shelter. You must either work for them or be given them by somebody. If these are your only needs, they are not very difficult to fulfill. To deny yourself the basic needs is not a sign of spirituality; but to require more than food, clothing and shelter is a neurotic state of mind.

Is not sex a basic human requirement?Sex is dependent upon thought; the body itself has no sex. Only the genitals and perhaps the hormone balances differ between male and female. It is thought that says "I am a man, and that is a woman, an attractive woman." It is thought that translates sex feelings in the body and says "These are sexual feelings." And it is thought that provides the build-up without which no sex is possible: "It would be more pleasurable to hold that woman's hand than just to look at her. It would be more pleasurable to kiss her than just to embrace her," and so on. In the natural state there is no build-up of thought. Without that build-up, sex is impossible. And sex is tremendously violent to the body. The body normally is a very peaceful organism, and then you subject it to this tremendous tension and release, which feels pleasurable to you. Actually it is painful to the body.

But through suppression or attempts at sublimation of sex you will never come into this state. As long as you think of God, you will have thoughts of sex. Ask any religious seeker you may know who practices celibacy, whether he doesn't dream of women at night. The peak of the sex experience is the one thing in life you have that comes close to being a first-hand experience; all of the rest of your experiences are second-hand, somebody else's. Why do you weave so many taboos and ideas around this? Why do you destroy the joy of sex? I am not advocating indulgence or promiscuity; but through abstinence and continence you will never achieve a thing.

There must be a living contact. If you walk out of the room, you disappear from my consciousness. Where you are, or why you are not here -- these questions do not arise. There are no images here -- there is no room for them -- the sensory apparatus is completely occupied with the things you are looking at now. There must be a living contact with those things that are in the room, not thoughts about things that are not here. And so, if you are totally 'tuned in' to the sensory activity, there in no room for fears about who will feed you tomorrow, or for speculation about God, Truth and Reality.

This is not a state of omniscience, wherein all of man's eternal questions are answered; rather it is a state in which the questioning has stopped. It has stopped because those questions have no relation to the way the organism is functioning, and the way the organism is functioning leaves no room for those questions.

The body has an extraordinary mechanism for renewing itself. This is necessary because the senses in the natural state are functioning at the peak of their sensitivity all the time. So, when the senses become tired, the body goes through death. This is real physical death, not some mental state. It can happen one or more times a day. You do not decide to go through this death; it descends upon you. It feels at first as if you have been given an anaesthetic: the senses become increasingly dull, the heartbeat slows, the feet and hands become ice cold, and the whole body becomes stiff like a corpse. Energy flows from all over the body towards some point. It happens differently every time. The whole process takes forty-eight or forty-nine minutes. During this time the stream of thoughts continues, but there is no reading of the thoughts. At the end of this period you 'conk out': the stream of thought is cut. There is no way of knowing how long that cut lasts -- it is not an experience. There is nothing you can say about that time of being 'conked out' -- that can never become part of your conscious existence or conscious thinking.

You don't know what brings you back from death. If you had any will at that moment, you could decide not to come back. When the 'conking out' is over, the stream of thought picks up exactly where it left off. Dullness is over; clarity is back. The body feels very stiff -- slowly it begins to move of its own accord, limbering itself up. The movements are more like the Chinese T'ai Chi than like Hatha Yoga. The disciples observed the things that were happening to the teachers, probably, and embodied them and taught hundreds of postures -- but they are all worthless; it is an extraordinary movement. It may look like the motions of a newly born baby. This 'conking out' gives a total renewal of the senses, glands and nervous system: after it they function at the peak of their sensitivity.

You shall not taste of death, for there is no death for you: you cannot experience your own death. Are you born? Life and death cannot be separated; you have no chance whatever of knowing for yourself where one begins and the other ends. You can experience the death of another, but not your own. The only death is physical death; there is no psychological death.

Why are you so afraid of death?

Your experiencing structure cannot conceive of any event that it will not experience. It even expects to preside over its own dissolution, and so it wonders what death will feel like -- it tries to project the feeling of what it will be like not to feel. But in order to anticipate a future experience, your structure needs knowledge, a similar past experience it can call upon for reference. You cannot remember what it felt like not to exist before you were born, and you cannot remember your own birth, so you have no basis for projecting your future non- existence. As long as you have known life, you have known yourself, you have been there, so, to you, you have a feeling of eternity. To justify this feeling of eternity, your structure begins to convince itself that there will be a life after death for you -- heaven, reincarnation, transmigration of souls, or whatever. What is it that you think reincarnates? Where is that soul of yours? Can you taste it, touch it, show it to me? What is there inside of you that goes to heaven? What is there? There is nothing inside of you but fear.

Why do you dream?You have the feeling that there is somebody, a self, who is running the show of your perceptions, translating what is seen, heard and felt, directing the eyes, saying "This is beautiful; that is ugly. I will look at this; I will not look at that." You cannot control like that -- you think that you can; but the camera is taking pictures all the time, and the tape- recorder is recording all the time, whether you look at one thing for a longer time than you look at something else. Then, when the body is at rest or your thoughts are in a passive state, these things begin to come up -- one bit of this, one bit of that -- it creates some kind of a mosaic and you begin to dream. When that 'somebody' is not there, there is nothing which says "I was asleep, I was dreaming, and now I am awake."

What is morality?It is not the following of enjoined rules of conduct. It is not a question of standing above temptations, or of conquering hate, anger, greed, lust and violence. Questioning your actions before and after creates the moral problem. What is responsible for this situation is the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong and influencing your actions accordingly.

Life is action. Unquestioned action is morality. Questioning your actions is destroying the expression of life. A person who lets life act in its own way without the protective movement of thought has no self to defend. What need will he have to lie or cheat or pretend or to commit any other act which his society considers immoral?

What is keeping you from being in your natural state?You are constantly moving way from yourself. You want to be happy, either permanently or at least for this moment. You are dissatisfied with your everyday experiences, and so you want some new ones. You want to perfect yourself, to change yourself. You are reaching out, trying to be something other than what you are. It is this that is taking you away from yourself.Society has put before you the ideal of a 'perfect man'. No matter in which culture you were born, you have scriptural doctrines and traditions handed down to you to tell you how to behave. You are told that through due practice you can even eventually come into the state attained by the sages, saints and saviors of mankind. And so you try to control your behaviour, to control your thoughts, to be something unnatural.

We are all living in a 'thought sphere'. Your thoughts are not your own; they belong to everybody. There are only thoughts, but you create a counter-thought, the thinker, with which you read every thought. Your effort to control life has created a secondary movement of thought within you, which you call the 'I'. This movement of thought within you is parallel to the movement of life, but isolated from it; it can never touch life. You are a living creature, yet you lead your entire life within the realm of this isolated, parallel movement of thought. You cut yourself off from life -- that is something very unnatural.

The natural state is not a 'thoughtless state' -- that is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated for thousands of years on poor, helpless Hindus. You will never be without thought until the body is a corpse, a very dead corpse. Being able to think is necessary to survive. But in this state thought stops choking you; it falls into its natural rhythm. There is no longer a 'you' who reads the thoughts and thinks that they are 'his'.

Have you ever looked at that parallel movement of thought? The books on English grammar will tell you that 'I' is a first person singular pronoun, subjective case; but that is not what you want to know. Can you look at that thing you call 'I'? It is very elusive. Look at it now, feel it, touch it, and tell Me. How do you look at it? And what is the thing that is looking at what you call 'I'? This is the crux of the whole problem: the one that is looking at what you call 'I' is the 'I'. It is creating an illusory division of itself into subject and object, and through this division it is continuing. This is the divisive nature that is operating in you, in your consciousness. Continuity of its existence is all that interests it. As long as you want to understand that 'you' or to change that 'you' into something spiritual, into something holy, beautiful or marvelous, that 'you' will continue. If you do not want to do anything about it, it is not there, it's gone.

How do you understand this? What you are looking at is not different from the one who is looking.What do you do with a statement like this? What instrument do you have at your disposal for understanding a meaningless, illogical, irrational statement? You begin to think. Through thinking, you cannot understand a thing. You are translating what I am saying, in terms of the knowledge you already have, just as you translate everything else, because you want to get something out of it. When you stop doing that, what is there is what I am describing. The absence of what you are doing -- trying to understand, or trying to change yourself -- is the state of being that I am describing.

Is there a beyond?Because you are not interested in the everyday things and the happenings around you, you have invented a thing called the 'beyond', or 'timelessness', or 'God', 'Truth', 'Reality', 'Brahman', 'enlightenment', or whatever, and you search for that. There may not be any beyond. You don't know a thing about that beyond; whatever you know is what you have been told, the knowledge you have about that. So you are projecting that knowledge. What you call 'beyond' is created by the knowledge you have about that beyond; and whatever knowledge you have about a beyond is exactly what you will experience. The knowledge creates the experience, and the experience then strengthens the knowledge.

What you know can never be the beyond. Whatever you experience is not the beyond. If there is any beyond, this movement of 'you' is absent. The absence of this movement probably is the beyond, but the beyond can never be experienced by you; it is when the 'you' is not there. Why are you trying to experience a thing that cannot be experienced?

You must always recognize what you are looking at, otherwise you are not there. The moment you translate, the 'you' is there. You look at something and recognize that it is a bag, a red bag. Thought interferes with the sensation by translating. Why does thought interfere? And can you do anything about it? The moment you look at a thing, what comes inside of you is the word 'bag', if not bag', then 'bench' or 'bannister', 'step', "that man sitting there, he has white hair." It goes on and on -- you are repeating to yourself all the time. If you don't do that, you are preoccupied with something else: "I'm getting late for the office." You are either thinking about something which is totally unrelated to the way the senses are functioning at this moment, or else you are looking and saying to yourself "That's a bag, that's a red bag," and so on and so on -- that is all that is there. The word 'bag' separates you from what you are looking at, thereby creating the 'you'; otherwise there is no space between the two.

Every time a thought is born, you are born. When the thought is gone, you are gone. But the 'you' does not let the thought go, and what gives continuity to this 'you' is the thinking. Actually there is no permanent entity in you, no totality of all your thoughts and experiences. You think that there is 'somebody' who is thinking your thoughts, 'somebody' who is feeling your feelings --- that's the illusion. I can say it is an illusion; but it is not an illusion to you.

Your emotions are more complex, but it is the same process. Why do you have to tell yourself that you are angry, that you are envious of someone else, or that sex is bothering you? I am not saying anything about fulfilling or not fulfilling. There is a sensation in you, and you say that you are depressed or unhappy or blissful, jealous, greedy, envious. This labelling brings into existence the one who is translating this sensation. What you call "I" is nothing but this word 'red bag', 'bench', 'steps', 'banister', 'light bulb', 'angry', 'blissful', 'jealous', or whatever. You are putting your brain cells to unnecessary activity making the memory cells operate all the time, destroying the energy that is there. This is only wearing you out.

This labelling is necessary when you must communicate with someone else or with yourself. But you communicate with yourself all the time. Why do you do this? The only difference between you and the person who talks aloud to himself is that you don't talk aloud. The moment you do begin to talk aloud, along comes the psychiatrist. That chap, of course, is doing the same thing that you are doing, communicating to himself all the time -- 'bag', 'red bag', 'obsessive', 'compulsive', 'Oedipus complex,' 'greedy', 'bench', 'banister', 'martini'. Then he says something is wrong with you and puts you on the couch and wants to change you, to help you.

Why can't you leave the sensations alone? Why do you translate? You do this because if you do not communicate to yourself, you are not there. The prospect of that is frightening to the 'you'.

Whatever you experience -- peace, bliss, silence, beatitude, ecstasy, joy, God knows what -- will be old, second-hand. You already have knowledge about all of these things. The fact that you are in a blissful state or in a state of tremendous silence means that you know about it. You must know a thing in order to experience it. That knowledge is nothing marvelous or metaphysical; 'bench', 'bag', 'red bag', is the knowledge. Knowledge is something which is put into you by somebody else, and he got that from somebody else; it is not yours.

Can you experience a simple thing like that bench that is sitting across from you? No, you only experience the knowledge you have about it. And the knowledge has come from some outside agency, always. You think the thoughts of your society, feel the feelings of your society and experience the experiences of your society; there is no new experience.

So, all that any man has ever thought or felt must go out of your system. And you are the product of all that knowledge -- that's all you are.

What is thought?You don't know a thing about it; all that you know about what you call 'thought' is what you have been told. How can you do anything with it -- mould it, control it, shape it or stop it? You are all the time trying to do something with it because somebody has told you that you must change this or replace that, hold on to the good thoughts and not the bad thoughts. Thoughts are thoughts; they are neither good nor bad. As long as you want to do something with whatever is there, you are thinking. Wanting and thinking are not two different things. Wanting to understand means there is a movement of thought. You are adding momentum to that movement, giving it continuity.

The senses function unnaturally in you because you want to use them to get something. Why should you get anything? Because you want what you call the 'you' to continue. You are protecting that continuity. Thought is a protective mechanism: it protects the 'you' at the expense of something or somebody else. Anything born out of thought is destructive: it will ultimately destroy you and your kind.

It is the repetitive mechanism of thought that is wearing you out. So, what is it that you can do about it? -- that's all that you can ask. That's the one and the only question, and any answer that I or anybody gives adds momentum to that movement of thought. What is it that you can do about it? Not one thing. It's too strong: it has the momentum of millions of years. You are totally helpless, and you cannot be conscious of that helplessness.

If you practice any system of mind control, automatically the 'you' is there, and through this it is continuing. Have you ever meditated, really seriously meditated? Or do you know anyone who has? Nobody does. If you seriously meditate, you'll wind up in the loony bin. Nor can you practice mindfulness trying to be aware every moment of your life. You cannot be aware; you and awareness cannot co-exist. If you could be in a state of awareness for one second by the clock, once in your life, the continuity would be snapped, the illusion of the experiencing structure, the 'you', would collapse, and everything would fall into the natural rhythm. In this state you do not know what you are looking at -- that is awareness. If you recognize what you are looking at, you are there, again experiencing the old, what you know.

What makes one person come into his natural state, and not another person, is written in the cells. It is acausal. It is not an act of volition on your part; you can't bring it about. There is absolutely nothing you can do. You can distrust any man who tells you how he got into this state. One thing you can be sure of is that he cannot possibly know himself, and cannot possibly communicate it to you. There is a built-in triggering mechanism in the body. If the experiencing structure of thought happens to let go, the other thing will take over in its own way. The functioning of the body will be a totally different functioning, without the interference of thought except when it is necessary to communicate with somebody. To put it in the boxing-ring phrase, you have to "throw in the towel," be totally helpless. No one can help you, and you cannot help yourself.

This state is not in your interest. You are only interested in continuity. You want to continue, probably on a different level, and to function in a different dimension, but you want to continue somehow. You wouldn't touch this with a barge pole. This is going to liquidate what you call "you," all of you -- higher self, lower self, soul, Atman, conscious, subconscious -- all of that. You come to a point, and then you say "I need time." So sadhana --inquiry and religious endeavor -- comes into the picture, and you say to yourself "Tomorrow I will understand." This structure is born of time and functions in time, but does not come to an end through time. If you don't understand now, you are not going to understand tomorrow. What is there to understand? Why do you want to understand what I am saying? You can't understand what I am saying. It is an exercise in futility on your part to try to relate the description of how I AM functioning to the way you are functioning. This is a thing which I cannot communicate, because you cannot comprehend. Nor is any communication necessary. No dialogue is possible. When the 'you' is not there, when the question is not there, what is is understanding. You are finished. You'll walk out. You will never listen to anybody describing his state or ask any questions about understanding at all.

What you are looking for does not exist. You would rather tread an enchanted ground with beatific visions of a radical transformation of that non-existent self of yours into a state of being which is conjured up by some bewitching phrases. That takes you away from your natural state -- it is a movement away from yourself. To be yourself requires extraordinary intelligence. You are 'blessed' with that intelligence; nobody need give it to you, nobody can take it away from you. He who lets that express itself in its own way is a natural man.